What Hillary tells the BIG WIGs

[Octafish]

Hey, New York! Read this!

Hillary Clinton Speaks from Peter G. Peterson Institute on Foreign Aid

C-SPAN aired Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's remarks at the Peter G. Peterson Institute. Pete Peterson made billions as a private equity underwriter (PEU). He used $1 billion to establish his institute, focused on getting America's financial house of cards in order (without asking corporations or the rich to step up in any major way.)

[font color="green"]America believes government cannot do anything competently, thus the private sector is the answer. That goes for international development.[/font color]

SNIP...

That requires partners. Giants of philanthropy gathered in New York in 2009. This list included Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Pete Peterson, George Soros, David Rockefeller, and Oprah Winfrey.

SNIP...

Clinton stated in her talk:

[font color="green"][font size="5"]Aid chases need, investment chases opportunity.[/font size][/font color]

[font color="green"]She mentioned the Clinton Foundation as a partner. President Bill Clinton privatized government functions during his two terms, benefiting multiple private equity underwriters.[/font color]

CONTINUED...

http://stateofthedivision.blogspot.com/2010/01/hillary-clinton-speaks-from-peter-g.html

And money trumps peace.

[msongs]

1. bernie's continuing votes to spend $$ for american wars "trumps peace" as well. F35s = opportunity n

[Octafish]

4. Do you think Bernie would consider Pete Peterson a friend?

In the richest times in human history, Pete Peterson has a vision for austerity. He and his fellow economic globalist chums see balancing the budget through privatization of social security (sic) and cuts to public services and works in place of, heaven forbid, raising taxes on the wealthy.

We all know their money is safe in Panama and Wyoming.

[nichomachus]

5. Yawn.

Give it up. You've worn that one out. Try a new one.

[BillZBubb]

30. Same tired, useless, trite bullshit. At least you are consistent.

[MisterP]

2. "misery and suffering are up, horrible agony holding steady, only consolidated pain portfolios

have seen a slide as of open"

[Octafish]

7. I'd laugh if it didn't hurt so much because it's true Harvard MBA material.

S.W.O.T. analysis.

And for those who are hard of hearing, repeat it from the O.A.R. POV.

ETA: I won't forget your case study.

[nc4bo]

3. She doesn't meet my qualifications! Next. nt

[Octafish]

8. I'm worried she will pick up where others have left the Left off.

I'd like to see more policies like this, from a guy who writes for Forbes, of all people:

Tax Offshore Wealth Sitting In First World Banks

James S. Henry
07.01.10, 09:00 AM EDT
Forbes Magazine dated July 19, 2010

Let's tax offshore private wealth.

How can we get the world's wealthiest scoundrels--arms dealers, dictators, drug barons, tax evaders--to help us pay for the soaring costs of deficits, disaster relief, climate change and development? Simple: Levy a modest withholding tax on untaxed private offshore loot.

Many aboveground economies around the world are struggling, but the economic underground is booming. By my estimate, there is $15 trillion to $20 trillion in private wealth sitting offshore in bank accounts, brokerage accounts and hedge fund portfolios, completely untaxed.

SNIP...

This wealth is concentrated. Nearly half of it is owned by 91,000 people--0.001% of the world's population. Ninety-five percent is owned by the planet's wealthiest 10 million people.

SNIP...

Is it feasible? Yes. The majority of offshore wealth is managed by 50 banks. As of September 2009 these banks accounted for $10.8 trillion of offshore assets--72% of the industry's total. The busiest 10 of them manage 40%.

CONTINUED....

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0719/opinions-taxation-tax-havens-banking-on-my-mind.html

Restoring Justice isn't too much to ask for in a Democracy, it IS the business of Democracy.

[CentralCoaster]

6. Clinton. "Economic Statecraft". They don't even hide it.

http://www.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2011/10/175552.htm

Today we welcome our Secretary of State. Hillary Rodham Clinton has demonstrated that in foreign policy and national security what is economic is strategic, and what is strategic is economic. She has been a great advocate for American leadership and for investing in and promoting the sources of our strength. She knows what it takes to compete in the 21st century. She understands the relationship between the economic strength of the United States and America’s standing in the world. And that’s what has animated her tireless daily work in the past three years that has spanned some 600,000 miles and almost 90 countries. Ladies and gentlemen, our Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton. (Applause.)...

...Simply put, America’s economic strength and our global leadership are a package deal. A strong economy has been a pillar of American power in the world. It gives us the leverage we need to exert influence and advance our interests. It gives other countries the confidence in our leadership and a greater stake in partnering with us. And over time, it underwrites all the elements of smart power: robust diplomacy and development and the strongest military the world has ever seen....

http://www.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2011/10/175552.htm

[Octafish]

11. Brazen. Because they own and operate the news media...

...and hire the police department, they know they can operate with impunity.



http://www.pgpf.org/what-we-are-doing/fiscal-summit

Thank you for the links, CentralCoaster. Reading what she has said makes clear she never thinks about the New Deal approach. She is thinking like the line-up above.

Milton Friedman and the Rise of Monetary Fascism

The Dark Age of Money

by JAMES C. KENNEDY
CounterPunch Oct. 24, 2012

EXCERPT...

Monetary Fascism was created and propagated through the Chicago School of Economics. Milton Friedman’s collective works constitute the foundation of Monetary Fascism. Knowing that the term ’Fascism’ was universally unpopular; Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics masquerade these works as ‘Capitalism’ and ’Free Market’ economics.

SNIP...

The fundamental difference between Adam Smith’s free market capitalism and Friedman’s ‘free market capitalism’ is that Friedman’s is a hyper extractive model, the kind that creates and maintains Third-World-Countries and Banana-Republics, without geo-political borders.

If you say that this is nothing new, you miss the point. Friedman does not differentiate between some third world country and his own. The ultimate difference is that Friedman has created a model that sanctions and promotes the exploitation of his own country, in fact every country, for the benefit of the investor, money the uber-wealthy. He dressed up this noxious ideology as ‘free market capitalism’ and then convinced most of the world to embrace it as their economic salvation.

SNIP...

Monetary Fascism, as conceived by Friedman, uses the powers of the state to put the interest of money and the financial class above and beyond all other forms of industry (and other stake holders) and the state itself.

SNIP...

Money has become the state and the traditional state is forced to serve money’s interests. Everywhere the Financial Class is openly lording over sovereign nations. Ireland, Greece and Spain are subject to ultimatums and remember Hank Paulson’s $700 billion extortion from the U.S. Congress. The $700 billion was just the wedge. Thanks to unlimited access to the Discount Window, Quantitative Easing and other taxpayer funded debt-swap bailouts the total transfers to the financial industry exceeded $16 trillion as of July 2010 according to a Federal Reserve Audit. All of this was dumped on the taxpayer and it is still growing.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/24/the-dark-age-of-money/

Big Time Crime Brazen.

[amborin]

9. plus, she had the 3/21 fundraiser w/ Soc Sec privatizer, Joel Jonhson, and others:

Today, Major Federal Lobbyists Steve Elmendorff, David Castagnetti, Joel Johnson, And Jeff Forbes Are Fundraising For Clinton In Washington, D.C. "Lunch with John Podesta, Campaign Chair, Official Event, Washington, District of Columbia, Hosted By Susan Brophy, Ann Castagnetti, David Castagnetti, Steve Elmendorff, Jeff Forbes, And Joel Johnson"

("Lunch With John Podesta," The Sunlight Foundation's Political Party Time, Accessed 3/1/16)

Goldman Sachs And Monsanto Lobbyist Steve Elmendorf Is A Major Fundraising Bundler For Clinton's Campaign

Steve Elmendorf Has Bundled $172,320 For Clinton's Campaign. (Federal Election Commission, Accessed 3/3/16)

Steve Elmendorf Lobbied For Monsanto In 2015. (Lobbying Records Disclosure Act, Accessed 3/3/16)

Steve Elmendorf Is Also A Clinton Campaign Adviser And "Was Retained By Goldman Sachs As One Of The Bank's 'Primary Lobbyists' Working To Weaken the Dodd-Frank Bill."

"Steve Elmendorf, a campaign adviser and fundraiser who has collected $30,505 for Clinton, was retained by Goldman Sachs as one of the bank's 'primary lobbyists' working to weaken the Dodd-Frank bill.

Records show that after the bill was signed into law, Elmendorf continued to work on behalf of a number of Wall Street clients to ensure the implementation was favorable to financial industry interests."

(Lee Fang, "Top Hillary Clinton Advisors And Fundraisers Lobbied Against Obamacare," The Intercept, 2/8/16)

Elmendorf Was Also "Tapped By Citigroup" To "Pass The Swap Jurisdiction Clarity Act" Which "Allow Banks To Avoid Financial Regulation By Moving Some Operations Overseas."

"Elmendorf was tapped by Citigroup, for example, to help the House of Representatives pass the Swap Jurisdiction Clarity Act, a bill strongly supported by Republican leadership in Congress to allow banks to avoid financial regulations by moving some operations overseas - a change that experts say could lead to another financial meltdown."


(Lee Fang, "Top Hillary Clinton Advisors And Fundraisers Lobbied Against Obamacare," The Intercept, 2/8/16)
Clinton Has Attacked Both Monsanto And Big Banks

During A January 2015 Democrat Debate Clinton Defended Dodd-Frank And Said "There Should Be No Bank Too Big To Fail, And No Individual Too Powerful To Jail."

CLINTON: "There's no daylight on the basic premise that there should be no bank too big to fail, and no individual too powerful to jail. We agree on that. But where we disagree is the comments that Senator Sanders has made that don't just affect me, I can take that, but he's criticized President Obama for taking donations from Wall Street. And President Obama has led our country out of the Great Recession.

Senator Sanders called him weak, disappointing, he even in 2011 publicly sought someone to run in a primary against president Obama. Now, I personally believe that President Obama's work to push through the Dodd Frank, the Dodd Frank bill and then to sign it was one of the most important regulatory schemes we've had since the 1930s.

So I'm going to defend Dodd Frank, and I'm going to defend President Obama for taking on Wall Street, taking on the financial industry, and getting results." (Hillary Clinton, Remarks At NBC Democrat Primary Presidential Debate, Charleston, SC, 1/18/16)


Valeant Pharmaceuticals LobbyIST David Castagnetti Will BE in attendance At Clinton's Fundraiser

David Castagnetti Lobbied For Valeant Pharmaceuticals Last Quarter. (Lobbying Records Disclosure Act, Accessed 3/1/16)

Castagnetti Has Also Given $2,700 To Clinton's 2016 Campaign. ( Center For Responsive Politics , Accessed 3/1/16)
On The Campaign Trail Clinton Has Attacked Valeant Pharmaceuticals

In An Online Ad, Clinton Attacks Valeant Pharmaceuticals For Its Price Hikes, Saying She Will Go After Their "Predatory Pricing" And "Make Sure It Is Stopped."

CLINTON: "This is a letter from someone who is here, she has to take a brand name drug, but take it since the early 1980s, at that time, it costs approximately $180 for 10 shots. The latest refill, was $14,700 for the same ten vials. The company is called Valeant Pharmaceuticals. I'm going after them, this is predatory pricing, and we are going to make sure it is stopped." (Hillary For America TV Ad, " Predatory," 3/1/16)


EX-Astrazeneca PHarmaceuticals And PhRMA Lobbyist Joel Johnson Is Also Going To BE in attendance At Clinton's Fundraiser

Joel Johnson Lobbied For AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals In 2014. (Lobbying Records Disclosure Act, Accessed 3/16/16)

Joel Johnson Lobbied For The Pharmaceutical Research And Manufacturers Of America (PhRMA) In 2011. (Lobbying Records Disclosure Act, Accessed 3/16/16)

Clinton Has Called The Pharmaceuticals Industry One Of Her Biggest Enemies

Clinton Has "Proudly" Declared That Drug Industries Are "One Of Her Biggest Enemies." "Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton has received more campaign cash from drug companies than any candidate in either party, even as she proudly declares the industry is one of her biggest enemies." (Sarah Ferris, "Clinton Tops 2016 Field In Drug Industry Donations," The Hill, 10/17/15)

EX-NRA LobbyIST JEFF FROBES Is Also Going To BE in attendance At Clinton's Fundraiser

Clinton Is Fundraising With Ex-NRA Lobbyist Jeff Forbes.

"Hillary Clinton's campaign will hold a fundraiser in Washington on March 21 that will feature as one of its hosts Jeff Forbes, who until the end of last year worked as a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association. Forbes, a former chief of staff to former Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), was registered as a lobbyist for the NRA Institute from 2009 until the end of 2015 on issues such as protecting Second Amendment rights, and regulation and gun control, according to lobbying disclosures." (Paul Blumenthal, "Hillary Clinton To Raise Money From Ex-NRA Lobbyist," The Huffington Post , 2/1/16)

Forbes Contributed $2,700 To Clinton's Campaign In April When He Was Still Lobbying Against Gun Control. "He donated $2,700 to the Clinton campaign in April when he was still registered to lobby against gun control. In addition, a colleague at his Forbes-Tate lobbying shop, Elizabeth Greer, also donated $2,700 while registered to lobby for the NRA." (Paul Blumenthal, "Hillary Clinton To Raise Money From Ex-NRA Lobbyist," The Huffington Post , 2/1/16)
On The Campaign Trail, Clinton Attacks The Gun Lobby

Clinton Has Called For More Gun Control Reforms On The Campaign Trail.

CLINTON: "And I will tell you, I am going to fight for new, effective, gun control measures. I got to tell you, it is just heartbreaking, it is sickening to me to see another massacre. People should not have to be afraid to go to college like this one, or go to the movie theater, or go to bible study. What is wrong with us that we can't stand up to the NRA, and the gun lobby and the gun manufacturers they represent? You know, this is not just tragic; you don't just need to pray for people, we need to act. And we need to build a movement. It's infuriating, every time there's another massacre, Republicans and the NRA say, 'now is not the time to talk about guns.' Yes it is. But more than talk, it is time to act." (Hillary Clinton, Remarks At Broward College, Davie, FL, 10/2/15)

[Octafish]

12. How can one NOT be in the thrall of those who pay band, hotelier, restaurateur, chauffeur, pilot...?

Hosts. And the body politic struggles alone as these parasites leave Democracy a dessicated corpse. Their appetite for money, like the vampire for blood, is endless.

Clinton Stalls on Goldman Sachs Speeches

Exclusive: Hillary Clinton has judged that she can wait out public calls for her to release the transcripts of speeches to Goldman Sachs, which earned her $675,000 in 2013, since she expects to soon wrap up the Democratic presidential nomination, as Chelsea Gilmour describes.

By Chelsea Gilmour
ConsortiumNews, March 7, 2016

One of Bernie Sander’s standard attack lines against Hillary Clinton has been to call attention to the hundreds of thousands of dollars in paid-speaking fees and donations that Clinton has received from Wall Street during her career, including $675,000 for three paid speeches to Goldman Sachs (at $225,000 a pop) after she left the State Department in 2013.

SNIP...

Who to Name?

Hillary Clinton addressed the Treasury Secretary issue on “Meet the Press,” saying, “You have to have a Treasury Secretary who understands the economy … I think there are a lot more places where one can and should look for such a Treasury Secretary.”

If Clinton were to make a clear promise not to appoint someone from Wall Street as Treasury Secretary, she could quell some voters’ fears. But to be sure, this was not such a promise. The Treasury Secretary issue may also have been identified by the Clinton campaign as an opportunity to strike back at Sanders for what Clinton perceives as his political naivety.

Bloomberg News reported, “On the show, Clinton said Sanders has been less aggressive than she in pursuing abuses in the financial industry, adding that her rival’s critique of the banking system and its role in the economy is simplistic.”

SNIP...

Bill Clinton’s Speeches

Further investigation of Hillary Clinton’s financial disclosure form shows at least 16 speeches made by Bill Clinton to banks or other financial service industry companies during that 14-month period.

Besides three speeches to USB Wealth Management totaling $675,000 (the same amount Hillary received for her Goldman speeches, by the way), Bill also gave paid speeches to: Bank of America ($500,000), SCIP Capital Management ($250,000), Deutsche Bank AG ($270,000 + $280,000 to Hillary for her October 7, 2014 speech), Veritas Capital Fund Management ($250,000), Apollo Management Holdings ($250,000), Texas-China Business Council ($265,000), Affiliated Managers Group ($225,000), Experian ($225,000), Insurance Accounting and Systems Association ($225,000), Centerview Partners ($225,000), Jefferies ($225,000), Citadel ($250,000), and Thomas Lloyd Global Assets Management (Schweiz) ($200,000 via satellite).

That means that Bill Clinton was paid $4,035,000 by the financial sector for 16 appearances over the course of 14 months. Keep in mind, those 14 months represent the interregnum between when Hillary Clinton left State Department and before she officially announced her candidacy (but it was widely speculated she would run).

Regardless of whether Hillary believes (or will admit) that her fees from the financial industry have influenced her polices or not, the fact that campaign finance law requires her to disclose her spouse’s income should be a guiding indication of what the rest of us already know: that payments made to one’s spouse or close family members can equally represent a conflict of interest, just as if the candidate had been paid directly.

An incisive article by Walter Russell Mead explains how the Clintons have worked this system to build the first “postmodern political machine.”

CONTINUED...

https://consortiumnews.com/2016/03/07/clinton-stalls-on-goldman-sachs-speeches/

Did Goldman Sachs ever pay anyone else $675,000 for a few speeches? If so, what was their "Payback?"

Thank you for the details, amborin. These facts are irrefutable. Which shows just how really corrupt our Notell-6 corp news media have become.

[amborin]

19. of course GS will get a payback!

[Scuba]

15. But she's the real progressive. Read it right here on DU.

[Octafish]

23. Did Blacks Really Endorse the 1994 Crime Bill?

By ELIZABETH HINTON, JULILLY KOHLER-HAUSMANN and VESLA M. WEAVER
The New York Times, APRIL 13, 2016

EXCERPT...

In the ashes of the war on poverty, the trend accelerated. The penal system ballooned, while social supports directed toward the poorest and most vulnerable declined precipitously. Black leaders argued for full employment in the press and on the floor of Congress, urged vetoes of draconian legislation and drafted their own bills to support community-led anti-crime programs — and all to little avail.

Flash forward to the Clinton era. As soon as Chuck Schumer, Joseph R. Biden Jr. and others introduced their bipartisan crime bill in September of 1993, groups representing black communities pushed back. The N.A.A.C.P. called it a “crime against the American people.”

While supporting the idea of addressing crime, members of the Congressional Black Caucus criticized the bill itself and introduced an alternative bill that included investments in prevention and alternatives to incarceration, devoted $2 billion more to drug treatment and $3 billion more to early intervention programs. The caucus also put forward the Racial Justice Act, which would have made it possible to use statistical evidence of racial bias to challenge death sentences.

Given the history of selective hearing, what followed was no surprise. Black support for anti-crime legislation was highlighted, while black criticism of the specific legislation was tuned out. The caucus threatened to stall the bill, but lawmakers scrapped the Racial Justice Act when Republicans promised to filibuster any legislation that adopted its measures.

In final negotiations, Democratic leadership yielded to Republicans demanding that prevention (or “welfare for criminals” as one called it) be sliced in exchange for their votes. Senator Robert Dole insisted that the focus be “on cutting pork, not on cutting prisons or police.” The compromise eliminated $2.5 billion in social spending and only $800 million in prison expenditures.

CONTINUED...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/opinion/did-blacks-really-endorse-the-1994-crime-bill.html

PS: Thanks, Scuba! It's more than nice to know someone, somewhere still has a memory of what is real.

[Mudcat]

10. The Clintons are highly successful business people, experts at working the system...

... it seems quite logical for them to argue in favor of slow incremental changes to this system, in lieu of revolution or transcendent evolution.

Face it: if most any of us peons were at the pinnacle, between the 1% & 0.01%, we'd also do whatever we had to do, say whatever we have to say, to protect our position, power, and fortune, and enlist the assistance of our cohort at that level for mutual protection.

A few mansions at the top of the hill, and many shacks down in the valley. The 1~10% hired to protect the mansions from the masses.

I just don't understand how so much of the Democratic Party supports the Party instead of its ideals and values.

[Octafish]

13. Really is a Totally New System that they own and operate with impunity.

What used to be Democracy -- all are equal under law -- no longer applies to those of means.

Senator Elizabeth Warren Asks Jack Lew, Who Owned an Offshore Account at Citigroup, to Investigate Panama Papers

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
Wall Street on Parade: April 8, 2016

Yesterday Senators Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown sent a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, asking him to investigate potential U.S. involvement in the money laundering issues recently exposed by the leak of the Panama papers from the law firm, Mossack Fonseca. The Senators told Lew:

“The Justice Department is reportedly reviewing this matter to determine whether there may be ‘high-level, foreign corruption that might have a link to the United States or the U.S. financial system.’ But, as the primary agency charged with protecting the integrity of the U.S. financial system and enforcing our laws against money laundering and terrorist financing, we strongly urge the Treasury Department to conduct its own inquiry into Mossack Fonseca’s activities and its clients.”

According to journalists who have seen the documents that were leaked by an unknown source, there were 617 “banks, law firms, accountants, company incorporators and other middlemen” operating in the United States that are implicated by the document leak in terms of helping clients conceal their assets.

Unfortunately, Senators Warren and Brown appear to have short memories. Otherwise, U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew would be the last person that comes to mind to conduct an investigation to protect “the integrity of the U.S. financial system.” How Lew was confirmed by the U.S. Senate for U.S. Treasury Secretary remains an open mystery at Wall Street On Parade.

SNIP...

The U.S. government has been aware for decades that money laundering was occurring at some of the largest banks on Wall Street. On November 9-10, 1999, the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations took a hard look at Citigroup’s commercial bank, Citibank. Senator Carl Levin provided the following details in his opening remarks:

“Today we are looking at the private bank of Citibank. It is the largest bank in the United States, and it has one of the largest private bank operations. It has the most extensive global presence of all U.S. banks, and it had a rogues’ gallery of private bank clients. Citibank has been private banker to:

“– Raul Salinas, brother to the former President of Mexico; now in prison in Mexico for murder and under investigation in Mexico for illicit enrichment;

“– Asif Ali Zardari, husband to the former Prime Minister of Pakistan; now in prison in Pakistan for kickbacks and under indictment in Switzerland for money laundering;

“– Omar Bongo, President of Gabon; subject of a French criminal investigation into bribery;

“– sons of the General Sani Abacha, former military leader of Nigeria; one of whom is now in prison in Nigeria on charges of murder and under investigation in Switzerland and Nigeria for money laundering;

“– Jaime Lusinchi, former President of Venezuela; charged with misappropriation of government funds;

“– two daughters of Radon Suharto, former President of Indonesia, who has been alleged to have looted billions of dollars from Indonesia…

“– General Albert Stroessner, former President of Paraguay and notorious for decades for a dictatorship based on terror and profiteering.”

A main focus of the 1999 hearing was on Amy G. Elliott, the Relationship Manager at Citibank who handled the Raul Salinas account. Robert L. Roach, serving as Counsel to the Senate investigation, testified that the Relationship Manager’s role at Citibank is to function as “in-house advocates” for the interests of their clients.

Sounding very similar to the allegations now swirling around the law firm Mossack Fonseca, Roach explained the services provided to Salinas, brother to then President of Mexico, Carlos Salinas, as follows:

“The private bank…established a shell company for Mr. Salinas with layers of disguised ownership. It permitted a third party using an alias to deposit funds into the accounts, and it moved the funds out of Mexico through a Citibank concentration account that aided in the obfuscation of the audit trail. Cititrust in the Cayman Islands activated a Cayman Island shell corporation called a PIC, or private investment corporation, called Trocca, Ltd., to serve as the owner of record for the Salinas private bank accounts…

“Cititrust used three Panamanian shell companies to function as Trocca’s Board of Directors. Cititrust also used three Cayman Island shell companies to serve as Trocca’s officers and principal shareholders. Cititrust controls all six of these shell companies and routinely uses them to function as directors and officers of PICs that it makes available to private clients. Later, Citibank established a trust, identified only by a number, to serve as the owner of Trocca, Ltd. Raul Salinas was the secret beneficiary of the trust.

“The result of this elaborate structure was that the Salinas name did not appear anywhere on Trocca’s incorporation papers. The Trocca, Ltd. accounts were established in London and Switzerland…

“To accommodate Mr. Salinas’ desire to conceal the fact that he was moving money out of Mexico, Ms. Elliott introduced Mr. Salinas’ then-fiancée Paulina Castanon as Patricia Rios to a service officer at the Mexico City branch of Citibank. Operating under that alias, Ms. Castanon would deliver cashiers checks to the branch where they would be converted into dollars and wired into a concentration account in New York. The concentration account is a business account established by Citibank to hold funds from various destinations prior to depositing them into the proper accounts. Transferring funds through this account enables a client’s name and account number to be removed from the transaction, thereby clouding the audit trail. From there, the money would be transferred to the Trocca, Ltd. accounts in London and Switzerland…

“Between October 1992 and October 1994, more than $67 million was moved from Mexico to New York and then on to London and Switzerland by way of this system…Yet no one questioned Mr. Salinas about the origin of these funds. Far from inquiring about the sources of the funds, Ms. Elliott wrote to her colleagues in June 1993 that the Salinas account ‘is turning into an exciting, profitable one for us all. Many thanks for making me look good.’ ’’

According to a November 2015 report by Bloomberg, Citigroup’s Banamex USA unit is currently under a U.S. Justice Department investigation over money laundering issues.

CONTINUED...

http://wallstreetonparade.com/2016/04/senator-elizabeth-warren-asks-jack-lew-who-owned-an-offshore-account-at-citigroup-to-investigate-panama-papers/

Not just the Repukes believe they're entitled. It's Buy Partisan. To them, We the People are the mopes to pick up their tab at the casino or bail them out of some endless war for oil or mineral rights.

If you were in the US Army: Thank you for your service, Mudcat.

[Mudcat]

20. I am an Army vet, & thank you for your thoughtful post & article

[Scuba]

14. Isn't Pete Peterson the guy who wants to kill Social Security. Yep, and he's buds with Hillary.

[Octafish]

16. ''Shared Sacrifice'' during the wealthiest times in human history means YOU get the tab.

The wealthy? Well, they stay wealthy that way. And the wealthiest can get wealthier.

Strange to see so many DUers get angry when we point that out.

Meet the CEO’s Who Want to Cut Your Social Security

National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare

We’ve written before about the billion dollar anti-Social Security lobby, led by Wall Streeter Pete Peterson and his myriad number of astroturf front groups, here, here and here. These CEO and Wall Street friendly groups are spending a lot of money to convince Congress that grandma and grandpa’s Social Security is to blame for our economic woes rather than talk about the real problem...$1 trillion in corporate loopholes and income inequality which is destroying the middle class.

Hats off to the Institute for Policy Studies and the Center for Effective Government for their new report detailing the truth behind America’s CEO-led campaign against Social Security. Thanks also to the Huffington Post for this terrific infographic highlighting the report’s key findings:

$12,000: median retirement savings of U.S. workers near retirement age

$14.5 million: average retirement account of Business Roundtable CEOs

CONTINUED...

http://www.ncpssm.org/EntitledtoKnow/entryid/2040/Meet-the-CEO-s-Who-Want-to-Cut-Your-Social-Security

Wealthiest Times in History means puh-lentee of Entitlements for the Entitled and lots of Austerity for the Rest of U.

[Scuba]

17. They hid $500,000,000,000 just in Panama last year, but we're "broke."

[Octafish]

18. Forbes of all people published a rather good proposal...

On My Mind

Tax Offshore Wealth Sitting In First World Banks

James S. Henry
07.01.10, 09:00 AM EDT
Forbes Magazine dated July 19, 2010

Let's tax offshore private wealth.

How can we get the world's wealthiest scoundrels--arms dealers, dictators, drug barons, tax evaders--to help us pay for the soaring costs of deficits, disaster relief, climate change and development? Simple: Levy a modest withholding tax on untaxed private offshore loot.

Many aboveground economies around the world are struggling, but the economic underground is booming. By my estimate, there is $15 trillion to $20 trillion in private wealth sitting offshore in bank accounts, brokerage accounts and hedge fund portfolios, completely untaxed.

SNIP...

This wealth is concentrated. Nearly half of it is owned by 91,000 people--[font color="green"]0.001% of the world's population[/font color]. Ninety-five percent is owned by the planet's wealthiest 10 million people.

SNIP...

Is it feasible? Yes. The majority of offshore wealth is managed by 50 banks. As of September 2009 these banks accounted for $10.8 trillion of offshore assets--72% of the industry's total. The busiest 10 of them manage 40%.

CONTINUED....

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0719/opinions-taxation-tax-havens-banking-on-my-mind.html

Hey, Scuba! If we can land a man on the moon, we can still dream or we can do something about it. Let's do the other thing because it's harder and we'll get to enjoy the laughter of their lawyers.

[bobthedrummer]

21. K&R

[Octafish]

22. It's not ''What,'' bobthedrummer. It's ''Who'' do we need to know to become billionaires?

Named in a previous exposure of Swiss bank accounts, some interesting celebs for a media cycle cough day. Then, the story dropped off the media radar.

Check Out Who's Hiding $32 Trillion in Offshore Tax Haven Accounts

The Market Oracle, May 02, 2013 - 12:43 PM GMT

EXCERPT...

Some $32 trillion has been hidden in small island banking hubs which host a bevy of trust funds, shell corporations and other tax havens, the Tax Justice Network estimates.

SNIP...

The information is still being sifted through, even as it's being released to the public, but here's some of what's been found so far:

■ American Denise Rich, ex-wife of pardoned tax cheat Marc Rich, has been uncovered as the settlor and beneficiary of two large trusts based in the tiny Cook Islands. The ICIJ found that Denise Rich gave up her American citizenship in 2012. Her citizenship was convenient enough when President Clinton had the authority to pardon her ex-husband.
■ French President Francois Hollande, ardent socialist and tireless champion of the 75% marginal tax rate, appears in these documents, mostly by association. His campaign co-treasurer, Jean-Jacques Augier, has been forced to reveal the name of his Chinese business partner in a Caymans-based distribution company. Augier says he used his offshore company to make a large investment in China.
■ Australian actor Paul Hogan, of "Crocodile Dundee" fame, has lost about $35.3 million from an account that he used to offshore his "bonza" film royalties. His once-trusted tax adviser Philip Egglishaw ran off with Hogan's sizeable hidden offshore stash.
■ French banking scion Elie de Rothschild, of the famous banking family, has been named in the leaks. He was instrumental in setting up some 20 trusts and 10 holding companies in the Cook Islands, all extremely opaque in nature. His heirs have, not surprisingly, refused comment.
■ Brigitte Bardot's third ex-husband, Gunter Sachs, a millionaire industrialist, has been revealed as the owner of a huge, obscure wealth-masking machine: trust upon shell company upon holding company, almost ad infinitum, mostly based in the Cook Islands. The ICIJ has constructed an interactive map of Sachs' extensive offshore holdings and business networks. The network is fairly representative of the steps that many on this list have taken to hide their wealth away. You can marvel at its imponderable complexity here.

And these names are barely the tip of the iceberg. The shockwaves have already begun to spread through the corridors of wealth and power all over the world.

How Much is $32 Trillion?

It bears repeating: $32 trillion has been stashed away, off the books, by corporations and wealthy individuals.

CONTINUED...

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article40250.html

I've been richer and I've been poorer, bobthedrummer. When richer, people want to BE friends. No matter what or who, I'm your Brother, Sir.

[Uncle Joe]

24. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Octafish.

[Octafish]

25. Have we talked about UBS?

UBS is a Swiss bank that is enjoying better days, thanks to the US taxpayer and a number of key US political leaders.

Hillary Helps a Bank—and Then It Funnels Millions to the Clintons

The Wall Street Journal’s eyebrow-raising story of how the presidential candidate and her husband accepted cash from UBS without any regard for the appearance of impropriety that it created.

by CONOR FRIEDERSDORF, The Atlantic, JUL 31, 2015

The Swiss bank UBS is one of the biggest, most powerful financial institutions in the world. As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton intervened to help it out with the IRS. And after that, the Swiss bank paid Bill Clinton $1.5 million for speaking gigs. The Wall Street Journal reported all that and more Thursday in an article that highlights huge conflicts of interest that the Clintons have created in the recent past.

The piece begins by detailing how Clinton helped the global bank.

“A few weeks after Hillary Clinton was sworn in as secretary of state in early 2009, she was summoned to Geneva by her Swiss counterpart to discuss an urgent matter. The Internal Revenue Service was suing UBS AG to get the identities of Americans with secret accounts,” the newspaper reports. “If the case proceeded, Switzerland’s largest bank would face an impossible choice: Violate Swiss secrecy laws by handing over the names, or refuse and face criminal charges in U.S. federal court. Within months, Mrs. Clinton announced a tentative legal settlement—an unusual intervention by the top U.S. diplomat. UBS ultimately turned over information on 4,450 accounts, a fraction of the 52,000 sought by the IRS.”

Then reporters James V. Grimaldi and Rebecca Ballhaus lay out how UBS helped the Clintons. “Total donations by UBS to the Clinton Foundation grew from less than $60,000 through 2008 to a cumulative total of about $600,000 by the end of 2014, according to the foundation and the bank,” they report. “The bank also joined the Clinton Foundation to launch entrepreneurship and inner-city loan programs, through which it lent $32 million. And it paid former president Bill Clinton $1.5 million to participate in a series of question-and-answer sessions with UBS Wealth Management Chief Executive Bob McCann, making UBS his biggest single corporate source of speech income disclosed since he left the White House.”

The article adds that “there is no evidence of any link between Mrs. Clinton’s involvement in the case and the bank’s donations to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, or its hiring of Mr. Clinton.” Maybe it’s all a mere coincidence, and when UBS agreed to pay Bill Clinton $1.5 million the relevant decision-maker wasn’t even aware of the vast sum his wife may have saved the bank or the power that she will potentially wield after the 2016 presidential election.

SNIP...

As McClatchy noted last month in a more broadly focused article that also mentions UBS, “Ten of the world’s biggest financial institutions––including UBS, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs––have hired Bill Clinton numerous times since 2004 to speak for fees totaling more than $6.4 million. Hillary Clinton also has accepted speaking fees from at least one bank. And along with an 11th bank, the French giant BNP Paribas, the financial goliaths also donated as much as $24.9 million to the Clinton Foundation––the family’s global charity set up to tackle causes from the AIDS epidemic in Africa to climate change.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/hillary-helps-a-bankand-then-it-pays-bill-15-million-in-speaking-fees/400067/

About UBS Wealth Management

It's Buy Partisan

After his exit from the US Senate, Phil Gramm found a job at Swiss bank UBS as vice chairman. He later brought on former President Bill Clinton. What a coincidence, they are the two key figures in repealing Glass-Steagal. Since the New Deal it was the financial regulation that protected the US taxpayer from the Wall Street casino. Oh well, what's a $16 trillion bailout among friends?



It's a Buy-Partisan Who's Who:

President William J. Clinton
President George W. Bush Heh heh heh.
Robert J. McCann
James Carville
John V. Miller
Paula D. Polito
Anthony Roth
Mike Ryan
John Savercool

SOURCE: http://financialservicesinc.ubs.com/revitalizingamerica/SenatorPhilGramm.html

One of my attorney chums doesn't like to see his name on any committees, event letterhead or political campaign literature. These folks, it seems to me, are past caring.

Some of why DUers and ALL voters should care about Phil Gramm.



The fact the nation's "news media" isn't really following this story should also be of great concern -- for the 99-percent.

PS: You are most welcome, Uncle Joe! Can you imagine what GD-P would be like if Bernie Sanders had talked to a Swiss bank and then got paid millions for a few minutes' work?

[AzDar]

26. K & R

[Octafish]

35. Might explain the attitude toward Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks.

“The Damage to Our Intelligence is Gut-Wrenching to See”

Why the Ruling Class is So Upset About Edward Snowden

by GARY LEUPP
CounterPunch June 26, 2013

EXCERPT...

It all, in my humble opinion, boils down to this. The entirety of the ruling elite and the journalistic establishment are keen on defending the programs Snowden has exposed; keen on punishing him for his whistle-blowing; determined to vilify him as a punk, narcissist, egoist, attention-hungry ne’er-do-well (anything but a thoughtful man who made a moral choice that has enlightened people about the character of the U.S. government); feverishly working on damage control while anticipating more damning revelations; and determined to get those four laptops with their incriminating content back into the bosom of the national security state.

What sort of state is it, that says to its own people, we can invade a country based on lies, kill a million people, hold nobody accountable but hey, when one of us does something so abominable as to reveal that the state spies constantly on the people of the world, we have to have a “manhunt” for him and punish him for treason?

The Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, has the audacity to tell NBC News, “It is literally gut-wrenching to see” Snowden’s revelations… because of the “damage” they do to “our intelligence capabilities”! As though there were really an “our” or “us” at this point. As though we were a nation united, including the mindful watchers and the grateful watched.

[font color="green"]No, there are us, and there are them. The tiny power elite that controls the mainstream press and cable channels, the corporations that dutifully hand over meta-data to the state (and then deny doing so to allay consumer outrage), the twin political parties, are sick to their stomachs that they’ve been so exposed.[/font color]

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/06/26/why-the-ruling-class-is-so-upset-about-edward-snowden/

It's always money with these people. It's how they measure stuff. Like Freedom.

[guillaumeb]

27. And Peterson has long been an advocate of eliminating Social Security. eom

[Octafish]

34. President Clinton and the Chilean Model: Midnight at the House of Good and Evil

The author was a Chicago Boy helping implement the Austerity scam -- including cutting Chilean social security -- for Pinochet:

President Clinton and the Chilean Model.

By José Piñera

Midnight at the House of Good and Evil

"It is 12:30 at night, and Bill Clinton asks me and Dottie: 'What do you know about the Chilean social-security system?'” recounted Richard Lamm, the three-term former governor of Colorado. It was March 1995, and Lamm and his wife were staying that weekend in the Lincoln Bedroom of the White House.

I read about this surprising midnight conversation in an article by Jonathan Alter (Newsweek, May 13, 1996), as I was waiting at Dulles International Airport for a flight to Europe. The article also said that early the next morning, before he left to go jogging, President Bill Clinton arranged for a special report about the Chilean reform produced by his staff to be slipped under Lamm's door.

That news piqued my interest, so as soon as I came back to the United States, I went to visit Richard Lamm. I wanted to know the exact circumstances in which the president of the world’s superpower engages a fellow former governor in a Saturday night exchange about the system I had implemented 15 years earlier.

Lamn and I shared a coffee on the terrace of his house in Denver. He not only was the most genial host to this curious Chilean, but he also proved to be deeply motivated by the issues surrounding aging and the future of America. So we had an engaging conversation. At the conclusion, I ventured to ask him for a copy of the report that Clinton had given him. He agreed to give it to me on the condition that I do not make it public while Clinton was president. He also gave me a copy of the handwritten note on White House stationery, dated 3-21-95, which accompanied the report slipped under his door. It read:

Dick,
Sorry I missed you this morning.
It was great to have you and Dottie here.
Here's the stuff on Chile I mentioned.
Best,
Bill.

Three months before that Clinton-Lamm conversation about the Chilean system, I had a long lunch in Santiago with journalist Joe Klein of Newsweek magazine. A few weeks afterwards, he wrote a compelling article entitled,[font color="green"] "If Chile can do it...couldn´t North America privatize its social-security system?" [/font color]He concluded by stating that "the Chilean system is perhaps the first significant social-policy idea to emanate from the Southern Hemisphere." (Newsweek, December 12, 1994).

I have reasons to think that probably this piece got Clinton’s attention and, given his passion for policy issues, he became a quasi expert on Chile’s Social Security reform. Clinton was familiar with Klein, as the journalist covered the 1992 presidential race and went on anonymously to write the bestseller Primary Colors, a thinly-veiled account of Clinton’s campaign.

“The mother of all reforms”

While studying for a Masters and a Ph.D. in economics at Harvard University, I became enamored with America’s unique experiment in liberty and limited government. In 1835 Alexis de Tocqueville wrote the first volume of Democracy in America hoping that many of the salutary aspects of American society might be exported to his native France. I dreamed with exporting them to my native Chile.

So, upon finishing my Ph.D. in 1974 and while fully enjoying my position as a Teaching Fellow at Harvard University and a professor at Boston University, I took on the most difficult decision in my life: to go back to help my country rebuild its destroyed economy and democracy along the lines of the principles and institutions created in America by the Founding Fathers. Soon after I became Secretary of Labor and Social Security, and in 1980 I was able to create a fully funded system of personal retirement accounts. Historian Niall Ferguson has stated that this reform was “the most profound challenge to the welfare state in a generation. Thatcher and Reagan came later. The backlash against welfare started in Chile.”

But while de Tocqueville’s 1835 treatment contained largely effusive praise of American government, the second volume of Democracy in America, published five years later, strikes a more cautionary tone. He warned that “the American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.” In fact at some point during the 20th century, the culture of self reliance and individual responsibility that had made America a great and free nation was diluted by the creation of [font color="green"] “an Entitlement State,”[/font color] reminiscent of the increasingly failed European welfare state. What America needed was a return to basics, to the founding tenets of limited government and personal responsibility.

[font color="green"]In a way, the principles America helped export so successfully to Chile through a group of free market economists needed to be reaffirmed through an emblematic reform. I felt that the Chilean solution to the impending Social Security crisis could be applied in the USA.[/font color]

CONTINUED...

http://www.josepinera.org/articles/articles_clinton_chilean_model.htm

It's a tragedy, what's happened to the safety net. Thankfully, Pete Peterson, the presidents' friend, will be there to help.

[Jitter65]

28. Privatization of government functions began in force with the Reagan administration and put in place

legislation that is still on the books. Secondly, if people want changes made with Wall Street, banks, and Education, whom do you think will be able to sit down and talk on an informed level to get the best results for consumers and clients? With whom do you think they will even talk or invite to talk with them?

[BillZBubb]

32. Well it won't be someone who has sold out to them like Hillary.

It will be someone like Elizabeth Warren who knows all the dirty secrets of the 1%.

[dchill]

29. K&R

[Octafish]

36. Does anyone wonder what Hillary and Erik Prince talk about?

This guy helped Porter Goss CIA drone program wetworks, per two good reporters from The New York Times.



From DemocracyNow! March 25, 2016:

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, I don’t think that there was—I don’t think there was political pressure put on the prosecutors in that case. I think it was a different sort of—it was a beast of a different nature. You know, Matthew and I talked to one of the very senior people involved with that prosecution, and he said, "Look, we’ve got an overwhelming abundance of evidence indicating that this company has committed systematic criminal violations of our defense restrictions, that are in place for our own national security, so that we’re not exporting these things to people that potentially could do harm to the U.S. or its interests. And while we’re trying to bring this criminal case, the Obama administration and Secretary Hillary Clinton are giving them more contracts. So how do we go in front of a jury and say this is a criminal enterprise, but the new Democratic president and his secretary of state are continuing to award them contracts?" So, basically, they said, "Well, all we really could do was to figure out a way to get Prince to leave those companies as the head and the chief controller of them, and then just levy massive fines against them."

http://www.democracynow.org/2016/3/25/erik_prince_in_the_hot_seat

Former CEO reveals Blackwater worked as ‘virtual extension of the CIA’

By Stephen C. Webster
The Raw Story, Thursday, March 14, 2013 10:18 EDT

The mercenary group formerly known as Blackwater worked as a “virtual extension of the CIA,” the company’s former CEO revealed to Daily Beast reporter Eli Lake, who obtained court documents showing the company argued as much when its executives were facing prosecution.

It has long been known that Blackwater, now called Academi, worked with the Central Intelligence Agency, and there were even some pretty straightforward clues that former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince was an agency asset. That relationship is strongly clarified by the company’s own legal defense in a three-year prosecution that collapsed in February, going from having the potential to jail several of the company’s executives to wrapping up with a guilty plea from two men punishable by probation, house arrest and a $5,000 fine.

“Blackwater’s work with the CIA began when we provided specialized instructors and facilities that the Agency lacked,” Prince told Lake. “In the years that followed, the company became a virtual extension of the CIA because we were asked time and again to carry out dangerous missions, which the Agency either could not or would not do in-house.”

Prince added that for many missions he did not even charge the CIA, saying his work at the company came not out of a desire for enrichment, but because “in the wake of 9/11, I felt it my patriotic duty.”

SNIP...

The company came to notoriety over a 2007 massacre in Baghdad that left 17 people dead, including unarmed women and children. Blackwater was banned from Iraq after that, but it reformed into numerous shell companies and many of its contractors returned under new employment.

Prince sold Blackwater in 2010 for $200 million and has since gone on to form a new mercenary group in the United Arab Emirates.

CONTINUED...

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/03/14/former-ceo-reveals-blackwater-worked-as-virtual-extension-of-the-cia/

The guy's got an army now. And she's been a private citizen for three years, marshalling hers. Assange is still in the Ecuadoran embassy in London. Snowden is exiled in Siberia Heights.

[Waiting For Everyman]

31. That's 2010, and it's how she operated as Sec. of State.

Which is one of the things the FBI is now investigating, in addition to her email security issues.

Anyone who missed the story of the connection between the State Dept. and the Clinton Foundation handling the payoffs, look here:

http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/01/30/clinton-system-donor-machine-2016-election/

Imagine what the Clintons would do as President again. It isn't a pretty thought.

[Octafish]

33. The Clintons Have Not Changed: The Clintonian War on the IGs (William K. Black)

The author helped put the S&L crooks behind bars in the 1990s as a regulator and forensic economist for the SEC. Black helped Iceland put its banksters behind bars, but for some reason, the Federal government failed to call on him for help in the great Bankster Bailout of 2008. He knows a bit about Inspector Generals and Control Fraud.



"I did not know the bank was being robbed because I was engaged in my sworn duty as a police officer."

The Clintons Have Not Changed: The Clintonian War on the IGs

By William K. Black
February 23, 2016 Bloomington, MN

Secretary Hillary Clinton is asking Democratic voters to believe that she has experienced a “Road to Damascus” conversion from her roots as a leader of the “New Democrats” – the Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party. When exactly this conversion occurred is never stated, but an interesting fact has emerged that demonstrates it did not occur during her service as the Secretary of State. A Wall Street Journal story provides the key facts, but none of the analysis.

Newly released emails indicate that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her top staff were involved in the selection process for the State Department’s internal watchdog, a position that ultimately went unfilled throughout her four-year tenure.

The WSJ’s angle is that such involvement in the selection of the Inspector General (IG) is a threat to the IG’s vital independence. True, and also true as the story notes that Hillary was far from rare as an agency or department head in seeking to select behind the scenes the supposedly independent IGs.

The function of the IG is to “speak truth to power.” Naturally, “power” hates IGs with a purple passion. Government leaders are most likely to hate having its abuses made public by IG when the government leader is secretly acting in concert with immensely powerful private leaders for their mutual benefit at the expense of the public.

What the WSJ missed is that the Clinton’s, for decades, have sought to destroy the independence and effectiveness of the IGs precisely because of the threat that they pose of blowing the whistle on these abuses. The Obama administration, of course, is famous for its prosecutions of those who blow the whistle on such abuses. The real story is not that Hillary attempted to select a lap dog as IG – the real story is that for her entire tenure as Secretary, four years, she left unfilled the leadership position of the only institution in the State Department dedicated to maintaining integrity and preventing the abuse of public power to aid cronies. That aid, of course, comes with the clear expectation that the cronies will make the head of the State Department wealthy as soon as she or he steps down. There is no possible defense for that, and it does not happen accidentally. The primary blame goes to President Obama, who made no nomination for the position for the entire four years. It wasn’t Republican intransigence that explains this scandal.

CONTINUED...

http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2016/03/clintons-not-changed-clintonian-war-igs.html#more-10101

Bill Black is one of "those" economists who won't play ball with the money crowd. Why? He. Has. Integrity.

Thank you for the heads-up on the NYT Donor Machine story, Waiting For Everyman. It's my favorite reading... current events...political thrillers...true not-crime crime.